PaigeFTW: Love Your Job, Hate the Game?
Much as I do love video games, I never wanted to play them for a living. Mind you, I can marathon if I must, but I just don’t have the endurance to play a single game for longer than eight-10 hours in a single day. I get bored, even if I love it.
My dream was always to write about video games, instead — reviews, commentary, analysis, news, whatever. I get to do that now, at least on a smaller scale.
I’ve never personally known any pro players, though Hawaii has produced a few. The most famous is probably Dyrus, a now-retired League of Legends star for Team SoloMid, though I’ve been told my friends know some world-class StarCraft players.
I’ve always wondered what that lifestyle is like, though.
Last week, as part of my day job over at MidWeek, I had the chance to talk to Matt Elento, an up-and-coming LOL player on Team Liquid.
Among many other tidbits, he told me that his team spends an average of 16-17 hours practicing together every day.
My brain cannot even comprehend how much time that is. That’s two workdays in one day — which I already find to be interminable, regardless of how much I enjoy my job. My eyeballs would explode. I’d wither away in misery.
He says he still loves the game, but playing it is no longer fun — it’s simply work, just as my duty to type this column is also work, even if I like it better than some of my other tasks. Matt likened it to playing professional sports, as football players don’t necessarily set out with the goal of having fun. You just do what you must do to win, is all.
It was a most pragmatic reality check — and something for those aspiring pro gamers out there to consider.
